Thursday, October 23, 2008

I got confirmation from our agency this evening that we will wait no longer than 4 months maximum for our referral!!! WOW!!!! Since babies have to be 5 months old before they become eligible for international adoption, it means that our little girl has already been born!!! WOW!!!! In just a few short months, Jeff and I will become parents of two children under two! WOW!!! It's a good thing I had plans to order her bedroom furniture tomorrow morning because she's going to be here before we know it! Until then though, I hope that she's being tenderly cared for and loved by her foster family.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

For a minute, let me go back in time over a year ago....When the wait for Graham's referral was becoming excruciatingly difficult and I felt as if I could explode with anticipation at any moment, my Mom's friend passed along a small slip of paper to me. This tiny slip of paper, which happened to come from a fortune cookie said the following 'Your greatest wish will soon come true.' She had been holding onto this piece of paper because soon after she got this message, her wish did come true with the arrival of her own miracle baby. Just days after this special paper was passed along to me, my greatest wish came true when we received Graham's referral.

Now, fast forward to October 18, 2008 and I myself was enjoying Chinese food with my family. As we were cleaning up, I began to hand out cookies and I quickly tore into my own. The message in front of me caught me completely off guard-'You will soon be crossing great ocean waters for an incredibly rewarding experience.' I immediately grabbed all the cookies and ripped into them to see what the other messages said. Each and every one, other than my own, had some laughable message that would quickly be forgotten and thrown into the trash. I'm not a superstitious person, but I will say that when waiting in adoption, I cling to any piece of hope I can possibly grasp. So, this fortune, in combination with the dreams I've been having, followed up with the recent news from our agency has me feeling like something pretty special is in the works right now.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

The past few days have been weird for me adoption wise. I know that weird isn't a very descriptive word, but it just describes how I've been feeling, and that is weird. Two nights in a row I woke up in the middle of the night after having extremely vivid and real dreams that we received our referral. Don't get me wrong, the wait this time around is a million times easier. It's not that we're not as anxious to get Princess Olson home as we were with Graham, but thanks to my miracle of a little guy, my personal time is down to virtually nothing. This leaves very little time for my mind to wander.

My emotions came to a head this morning and I ended up having a tearful conversation on the phone with my mom. As I paced the kitchen pouring my heart out, I was oblivious to the blinking light on my answering machine. Only after I hung up the phone, did I notice the message and hit 'play'. I heard "Hi Melissa, it's Jill..." In case you don't know, Jill is the keeper of the waiting list, the patient and kind woman who answers all my waiting list questions in a very timely manner. As you can imagine, my stomach literally dropped when I heard her name. She went on to give me a few details of why she was trying to reach me then asked that I get in touch with her. With my very shaky hands, I dialed her number to get what would turn out to be amazing news! Here's what we know....Eastern, the agency in Korea has requested that any families with Korean heritage (us!) have their files sent to them ASAP for matching! They've also requested that those families be removed from the CHS waiting list. According to Jill, this was a very good sign and when I asked her if she thought if we'd still be waiting until spring she laughed and said she didn't think so! The only down side, is that I no longer have a way to check our 'progress' on the list. My one and only way to keep tabs on this process has been taken away and being the type A person that I am, that's a bit difficult to swallow. I can only hope that this process speeds up fast enough that I don't have too long to wonder where we should be on the list. It looks as though a trade has been made- I give up the waiting list in exchange for a pass to ride on the fast track...I think I'll take it! :)

One last thing, in case you're into the details, our file is heading to Korea on Tuesday...I wish for a smooth and happy trip for our paperwork!!!!